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Skills
Skills represent unique abilities that players cannot easily or safely represent during the duration of a game weekend. Skills also allow for players to streamline skills and activities that normally would require a number of hours (or months) of work in a period of time that is much more satisfying for a gaming experience. Skills are provided a series of mechanics which outline what the Skill is capable of doing. On occasion a player may build or come across equipment or gear that allows for Skills to be used and modified in different ways. Items exist in play such as Trade Route cards, Big Dig Equipment, or Engineering Tools to name a few. These unique cards allow for the mechanics and effects of the use of a skill to change, or allow for a simple modification of Mind Point costs for using the Skill. Whenever a player is using a Skill, the Skill listed specifically does ONLY what the mechanics of the Skill states unless the player has a mechanic changing Physical Representation and Item Card with them. In life, as soon as a rule is written down, the debate in regards to the scope and design of a Skill begins. Over the generations people have spent their lives attempting to create written documents that outline every potential instance, scenario, and implementation of a rule. Lawyers can spend years debating and interpreting laws. Philosophers can spend lifetimes debating religious outlines and their meanings. In the world as a whole, almost no rule is going to be completely immune from interpretation. With this in mind, we have attempted to change the design of Skills from a technical documentation to more of an easy to read and understand ‘spoken format.’ It is our hope that by explaining the spirit of the rule and outlining specifically what the rule does, we can avoid as much rules argument as possible. With the concept of explaining the spirit and mechanics of the rules in mind; instead of giving a stereo instruction style listing of just mechanics, we will be outlining what the individual Skill mechanics are capable of doing. The outlined mechanics for what a Skill does is the limits of how a Skill can be applied. In the past players would look at the name of a Skill and infer and guess how they could use that Skill in their day to day game experience. Now players will read what a Skill does, and unless a mechanic providing device states otherwise, that is all the Skill will do. Regardless of our efforts, we KNOW that despite the years of testing, taking feedback, applied review, and hard work of professional writers and editors, there STILL will be items that we need to clarify for the network. It is our hope that we can keep these clarifications to a minimum; however, what clarifications we do need to provide will be provided on a Network level on the Dystopia Rising LARP Network home page. This way any confusion or interpretation is settled across the entire Network instead of being interpreted on a branch by branch basis.